True Detective Season 1 Blu-ray review
By Josh Hill
The True Detective Blu-ray set comes out today and with it comes plenty of questions about just how well put together this set is. While we all know what we’re getting when it comes to the quality of the show itself, many are wondering how well everything transfers over to Blu-ray and if the set is worth purchasing.
We were lucky enough to get our hands on a copy of the Blu-ray set for the first season of True detective and have broken down the release into the three major categories you need to know about: Video Quality, Audio Quality and Special Features.
Video Quality
As you’d expect with e a show that airs in high definition and is being released on a high definition format, True Detective looks just phenomenal on Blu-ray and is incredibly easy to watch. The color are rich, the black levels are nice and deep and it’s an utterly perfect 1080p/AVC-encoded video presentation.
That’s geek speak for ‘it looks really awesome’.
The cinematography in True Detective is part of what gave the show it’s cinematic feel and the HD transfer to Blu-ray is completely faithful to that and looks just stunning.
Audio Quality
Just like the video transfer for True Detective, the audio quality on the Blu-ray set is just outstanding. It boasts an incredibly crisp DTS-HD Master Audio 5.1 surround track that immerses you within the world that has been created on the show. Every tiny cricket chirp to every loud gun blast all the way to the creepy setting of the final major scene of the show, the sound track on the Blu-ray is just amazing.
That’s not even mentioning how well T-Bone Burnett score is throughout the series. A saying has long been said that it’s not how your product looks it’s how it sounds that matters and True Detective luckily score five stars in both audio and visual departments.
Special Features
Credit: HBO
This is always my favorite part of any Blu-ray I’m looking into, as the special features are often time the wild card that either convince you that what you’re buying is worth the money or that you’re better off waiting for the next edition they release.
For True Detective, the special features could be better but this is a case where the show is just so good that even if we’re dealing with a half-full glass of features, the set is worth a purchase.
My first major gripe is with the audio commentary because there’s only two episodes that have any commentary on them. It’s not as though we’re breaking down an 80-episode show, there are eight episodes and no one cared to do all eight episodes with commentary.
The second beef with the features is that the longest one is 15 minutes long and is a pretty standard ‘Making Of’ featurette. It would have ben far more interesting to really dig into the story, where it came from and more importantly the deep creation of Marty and Rustin.
Those features are either non-existent or present in the lightest form possible. Still, the show is one of the best we’ve seen in a while and that alone makes this set worth the purchase at the right price.